


There's a Power When You're Near Me

by thegrumblingirl



Category: Captain Marvel (2019)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, Established Relationship, F/F, Grief/Mourning, Not Really Character Death, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-11-17 16:08:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18101903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegrumblingirl/pseuds/thegrumblingirl
Summary: The sun begins to rise.It is true, then.





	There's a Power When You're Near Me

**Author's Note:**

> The movie basically dropkicked me back into my 90s music childhood, and the thought of [Heather Nova's _Not Only Human_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQZpp0cKOk4) hasn't let me go since; so here I am, tempting fate.

“If there are lives at stake, I’m flying the plane.”

They’re not the last words Maria ever heard her say. But they’re the ones that will forever eclipse the rest of that morning, that day. Was it, ‘higher, further, faster, baby’? Was it, ‘Don’t worry’?

Does it matter?

She knows Carol said it thinking of the lives to be saved, the wars to be ended; even if neither of them fully understood _what_ it meant. What it could mean.

She knows Carol said it thinking of Monica, of her little girl. _Their_ little girl.

She lies in bed and morning’s not yet come. The house is dark and quiet, and perhaps if she stays quiet with it, morning will show mercy. Perhaps it will remain a bad dream. The sheets untouched on her left side. The cold sitting in her heart.

Perhaps she won’t have to tell Monica when she comes back from her weekend with her grandparents.

Perhaps her mother won’t see by the grief in her eyes that her world has come crashing down.

Perhaps it won’t be true.

The sun begins to rise.

It is true, then.

At the academy, they were always told that their god-damned feelings were a liability. That their hearts would get them killed, and those after them for mourning them. Is this weakness, then?

No, she decides. It’s just something that’s begun. And perhaps, one day, it’ll end.

She wipes the tears from her cheeks. No, not end. But maybe one day she won’t feel so powerless.

*

Some nights she looks out into the sky. Avenger and Photon, they were never ones to reach for the stars — just the sky. That was theirs, and they owned it. They were pilots, not star-seekers, and yet sometimes Maria wonders. What if Carol’s plane had just never come down? What if she’d just… kept going? Up, up, towards the stars.

Her nana used to tell her that those who died went on to become stars, to help those who’d been left behind navigate the treacherous seas.

So she becomes a star-seeker, after all.

*

She keeps flying. It’s what she does, it’s what she knows.

After the research project is, for lack of a better word, shut down, she is given a choice: relocate and take another, similar position with another development crew, or secure herself an honourable discharge, and walk away.

She looks to the stars that night. She can’t leave — her parents are here, Monica’s school is here, and she… she used to be here. Her ghost lingers, like the lights in the sky. Stars are just glowing embers of galaxies that used to be; and Carol’s soul, her spirit, is up there somewhere. She can’t change the sky, for fear of losing her forever.

These are thoughts she forbids herself during the day: they bring pain and a weight she cannot bear but must. And she will.

Sometimes, she feels Carol’s hand on her shoulder, her arms around her as they dance. Sleepy noises she made against her neck while waiting for the coffee, on those rare days when it wasn’t Carol who woke first, or knocked down the door before dawn, to bound inside, bright-eyed, and to kiss her, lingering despite her excitement.

Maria still waits for the knocks, when she’s up before the morning comes; when morning waits patiently for her to reckon with the past and the truth, waits for her to remember.

It’s getting easier. But it will never _be_ easy. It will never be light.

*

They move, eventually, to a different house. One that has a yard big enough to house a plane or two, and a workshop. Maria might not have worked on the engine that would end the wars, but she’s a damn fine mechanic, too. She’ll fly ‘em and fix ‘em. She almost dreads the day Monica will clamour to learn, but she knows she will. And she’ll teach her. It’s only right.

It’s Monica who’s kept all of Carol’s things. She wears the jacket that’s so much too big for her, and she thumbs through the photos and postcards until the edges are curling with her curiosity. There are days when Maria can’t look at them, when she wants to tell Monica to take them out of the living room and hide them somewhere; and there are nights when she has to restrain herself from digging up the box and losing herself in it. There are nights she just wants her back.

*

Six years. Six years, countless starless nights, days and minutes and seconds she thinks she’s lost, only to gather herself, pick herself up, _get up get up get up_ ; to push past the grief and see the _joy_ in her memories, of a woman who had vowed never to leave well enough alone, to always push, to never leave those she loved behind. To protect and fight and never, ever, to give up.

That’s the same woman that stands before her today, lost and confused and _angry_. She’s been taken, lied to, she’s been _controlled_.

She does not know who she is.

So Maria tells her. It pours out of her, as if all those years had passed as nothing, as sleight of hand. She does not know, in that moment, whether Carol understands — what they were, together and of themselves, to each other.

Does it matter?

She’s crying before they reach each other, but then Carol’s arms are around her, and tears born of memories and loneliness transform: there’s a power in them still, but it’s different. This time, they seek to heal, not to destroy.

And again, they fly — and this time, they seek the stars. Together.

*

“So how many are out there?” Maria asks one night.

Carol’s just stepping out onto the porch, done changing out of her suit — the one she still wears, even though it’s _Kree_ — and into clothes that aren’t hers but that she would have worn, back then. Things Maria scrounged up in thrift shops and flea markets; because somehow Carol Danvers is _nostalgic_ , and her taste in clothes still comes from 1989 and there’s probably no changing it.

“How many?” she returns, coming to stand at Maria’s side, their shoulders touching. Maria already knows that in a moment an arm will snake around her waist and pull her closer, like it’s _smooth_ , and she’s prepared to laugh at her.

“Civilisations, planets… people.” She almost shrugs, as though it doesn’t matter, but it does. It all matters.

“Too many to count.”

“Too many to save?” She doesn’t have to turn to see her smirk.

“Won’t know unless I try.”

“You’ll be busy.”

There’s a hand at her back, and a kiss pressed to her temple.

“Long as you’re my searchlight home.”

**Author's Note:**

> Maybe there's a light that's always on  
> Maybe we're not only human
> 
> come yell at me on tumblr (@screwtheprinceimtakingthehorse) or twitter (@grumblewhale)


End file.
